D-I-Y Front Lip on the Cheap

Adding a front lip was one of the first aero modifications I made to my 1999 Honda Civic HX Coupe (a.k.a. SLAMBO). I used heavy duty agricultural plastic to get the job done, cutting down a sheet of bamboo root barrier. Bamboo root barrier comes in a variety of widths and weights. The lighter the weight, the easier it is to make the bends. You won’t find it locally, though, and it tends to be expensive. Most folks use lawn edging like this Five-inch wide Master Mark Plastic Landscape Edging. I’m not sure if this stuff is too heavy to make tight bends, but it looks similar to the material that Mighty Car Mods used in their recent D-I-Y Lip episode.

Here’s a photograph of the lawn edging:

And here’s some Bamboo Barrier (it comes in 60 or 80 MIL, in a variety of widths and lengths) that’s similar to the product that I used:

You can see the D-I-Y lip riveted on Slambo’s nose in this video:

I’ve thought about using the bamboo barrier to build belly pans, but the roll I have wasn’t wide enough and the big rolls are expensive. It was a lot less costly to buy a couple of sheets of coroplast at Home Depot. Speedway Motors sells a roll plastic that’s similar to the bamboo barrier and they have it in a bunch of different colors, to boot. Speedway stocks the material in red, yellow, white, and blue lip.

In this video, I’ve ripped the lip off the car. You can see the rivets still stuck in the plastic …

1 comment so far ↓

This Do-It-Yourself modification to the lip looks rather interesting and easy. Using cheap and easily available materials can give your car a new look and always gets heads to turn. You just need a little bit of creativity. Cove base, double sized tapes and zip ties do a good job in remodeling the front lip. Alternatively, weather stripping, screws and flat washers can be choices to consider.